Material

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Application: TopCASTOR 3D/TopCASTOR 2D

See also: association, thickness

Icon access:

Menu access: Mechanical analysis | Mechanical properties | Matters

Description:

Allows materials to be defined for surface part faces, solids, or beams.

General principle:

1. If materials have already been used, go straight to 3.  Otherwise, select a new material.

2. Select the geometries to which this material applies.  The selection mode can be changed by clicking on to select whole shapes (for materials for solid parts), or on to select faces or beams (for materials for casing, sheeting and beams).

3. Select a material that has already been assigned from the drop-down list, or click on and select a material.  Select the geometries to which this material is to be applied/removed.

Specific point(s):

 Materials are color-coded, the key to which is displayed in a legend window .

 A material that does not point to any geometry (e.g. if it has been emptied) is automatically deleted.

 A material is placed in the "MATERIALS SET" at the time it is created, and can be edited at any time in the symbolic tree .

The available list of materials is the result of the pooling of TopSolid's own matters file (in which all matters that have mechanical and thermal characteristics are processed), and, optionally, a materials file supplied by CETIM.  The latter, known as catmat.dat, should be located in a directory that TopCASTOR can access.

A heavily meshed part, if it has no material, is automatically assigned a material that is equal to its TopSolid matter.  More generally, any material placed onto a whole part or a beam is synchronized with its TopSolid matter.  Thus, a matter modification creates a material modification, and vice versa.

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